9 Responses to “Ben Hogan & George Knudson The Secrets in the D”

Andrew,just stumbled across this and thought I’d ask you a question: I’m a
fellow pro and have taught for 30 years and I liked your pairing of George
and Ben, but I think you’ve got something wrong here and I wanted to ask
you something and then expound… So I ask:How would the arms and hands be
“pulled” down by “pushing off the right foot/leg?Can’t happen. A push from
the right leg cannot, will not pull the club down. Think about it. There is
no “push” in the best golf swings. The right leg for all practical
purposes is dead past about 3/4s of the upwswing. Acting just as a stable
brace. Its force vector moving into body. The “weight shift”, and I use
that term loathingly because there is no body mass shift, only pressure
shifts from leg to leg until post impact when the arm/club unit pulls the
body mass balanced over the left leg. The pressure shift occurs when the
left leg flexes, intentionally and timed at the correct moment. This
deweighting of the left leg pressures the right stable braced right leg
momentarily, before the natural fall back into the left leg. Its this fall,
this vertical downward force that “pulls” the golf club back earthwards.
And only that. Any “push” off the right leg is crash city. There is immense
pressure on the right leg pre fall, but no push. Once the club gets below
mid body with shaft pointed earthward, then the left leg extends, pushing
up and back, and the pelvis moves up and back. And there’s your “bull whip”
idea. As a side note, the rt leg collapses, goes limp asap as soon as the
fall left lands the body mass pressure on the left leg. This intentionally
collapsed and limp leg then becomes an inertial force to swing around and
against on the upward part of follow through. Exactly how we throw for
example. You think about what I’m saying, cause I’m right. :)I just hate to
see the “push” stuff cause it doesn’t work. If you push of the right leg
with the club above you it creates a force that guarantees OTT w/o some
goofy compensatory move, or worse, a passive gravity type transition, where
one loses a tremendous amount of space/time that one could use to
accelerate the club. Not to mention its frkn impossible to time that day in
day out.The other problem with the incorrect “push” notion is that most
humans/students are horrifically one sided in their bodies. And most often
right sided. Their right leg is much “stronger” and much more hard wired to
their brain, just like their right arm/hand. And any focus on It will doom
them to overuse. When in actuality, I believe the golf swing is much more,
if not totally a left legged event, short of the initial simple stable
bracing of the right leg. There is no push. Only pressure as the left leg
deweights and the fall proceeds. You cannot get vertical forces from
pushing, and you need vertical forces because the club is above you. The
only vertical force available is gravity, and to get it you must let the
body fall into the left leg. Ben is so sneaky the way he does it, but watch
closely and you’ll see it. There is an extra flexion of the left leg pre
transition. Extra, in the sense that it is not accommodating the turn any
longer. That’s the deweight. Nicklaus does it vividly and obviously when
you know what you’re seeing. As all the great strikers do. Watch the great
baseball hitters. Same thing.Anyway, I liked your enthusiasm in the video
and I liked that you selected Knudsen with Hogan. One of the great swings
and great strikers George was. Too bad he couldn’t putt to save his life.
Not in the same league as Ben though, cause he did “push” somewhat and had
too much lateral motion for no reason. However, he did so with a fantastic
deweight and crash into the left leg also. Beat enough balls and he could
do it, but mere mortals cannot do that. And it is totally unnecessary. His
super wide stance was related to his need to do that. But not the best it
could have been.Ponder what I’m saying. Experiment with it. Stop pushing.
Think vertical forces only with the legs. The lateral motion comes from
falling from one leg to the other, but the forces the leg create are only
vertical. Like running. I believe Hogan once said, that he “ran at the
ball”. Exactly.Keep the faith and keep trying to make players better.:)over
an out,R.﻿

+555Trout I disagree with some of the things you are saying. A push from
the right leg, or as other would say “starting the weight shift”, if done
correctly will result in a person dropping his right shoulder while moving
his hips slightly towards target which then causes the arms and hands to
drop further down

A very long comment ,but will do my best to reply, what you say is the rear
leg plays no part in the forward swing ,I disagree with you as Ben Hogan
lost a US Open due to his rear foot slipping on downswing causing a Hook ,
when i boxed I used my my whole body to punch rear leg to brace on turn and
push ( transfer if you like) going forward Pete Cowan calls it the Pyramid
of power move World No 1 or 2 golf coach so pretty succesful, the move is
subtle but a good golf swing uses the whole body to create power just like
Pitchers ,boxers etc do,, your method sounds a bit Stack and Tilt, which i
am not a fan of at all. Plus the arms are pulled down by the body moving,
ie my fist move fast because the arm was relaxed and my Kinetic chain
created the speed also like a baseball pitcher when throwing a pitch. that
is why i like the Bullwhip analogy as the but of the whip is the feet and
the tip is the club head . a small movement in the hand creates incredabile
speed at the tip.
Anyway that is my thoughts and beliefs on the subject, take care.﻿

+Brian Sulzbach interesting point Brian , my thought is if you slide you
alter where the club will bottom out in the swing as you have moved your
centre, I am trying to slide less myself at the moment, I want the swing as
simple as possible not full of compensations.

the more vertical your swing is, the more you’re gonna feel that gravity
plays a part with the arms coming down and the harder it is to get the hip
and leg action to pull the arms down into position and capture the ball.
the pushing action is allowed by the flatter rotation with zero slide. you
are doing an elvis presley with your hips and legs but the leading hip
pulls back and slightly up. with this action you will feel and understand
why hogan said you cannot move the hips too fast. you can turn around super
fast but never loose balance whilst the arms and club do a figure 8 from
above as they are dragged by the drive of lower body action.﻿